“Broussard Council renews Cox’s franchise”

The Advertiser updates the story of Broussard’s good-deal renewal of Cox’s cable franchise. They got both a tighter build-out requirement and a governmental wifi net out of the deal. On the build out:

The new contract stipulates that the cable company will provide service to areas with 30 residences per linear mile, replacing the previous requirement of 40 per linear mile.

According to an earlier story Langlinais was pressing for 25 residences per linear mile. He apparently got thirty. That’s a substantial improvement.

The new wifi deal was reported as sparsely as you could imagine:

Governmental agencies, such as the police, fire and public works departments and Broussard City Hall also will receive access to wireless Internet service under a separate agreement, Skinner said.

Though wifi is apparently not incorporated in the franchise agreement itself it is hard not to see it as anything other than a part of what Cox gave up in its negotiations. Especially if the price was really as “nominal” as Langlinais earlier claimed. The franchise ordinance and wireless side agreement are not yet up on the Broussard website. The details, especially on the wifi end, should be interesting…just how robust–and thus how useful–the wireless will be will depend largely upon how well the city specified the contract–and how long it lasts. (Points I made in last week’s post on this topic.)

Broussard, it sounds like, cut a good deal. Congratulations to the city…and a tip of the hat to Lafayette’s fiber project which surely provided much of the needed leverage.